Casual Games Harmony

As you might know we are already working on a new, unannounced game. Everything is going all right so far, but the progress seems slow as we have just begun and we are still in early preproduction. During the last couple of weeks we’ve been defining the minimal feature set for the game, designing prototypes and experimenting with various ideas trying to see what elements will make it to the final game. We also had an interesting discussion about whether we should hype the new game or keep a low profile during the development.

Continue reading “To Hype or Not to Hype?”

Today we have launched Monkey Monarchs the first SaqPack expansion for our latest game Saqqarah. I hate repeating the news section of our website, but this time it is a very important moment for us as this is the first time ever that we have created an addon pack for our game.

What is also noteworthy is that today after many weeks of hunting we were finally able to reproduce and fix the “Access Violation” bug that was troubling many players in the temple of Bast. If you were affected by this bug, be sure to download the latest fixed version from the official game website. We are currently sending the fixed builds to all the portals so the updated version should soon be up everywhere.

I’m sorry that I’m not blogging that often recently as I used to. That is mainly due to three reasons:

1. too little time (We’re doing a lot of publishing recently)

2. nothing interesting to write about (We’re doing a lot of publishing work recently) 

3. the interesting part I would like to write about is actually top secret and I can’t share anything just yet. (But even if I could, I would probably have no time to write about it as there is a lot of publishing work recently!)

Anyway, I have added music from Saqqarah to the music section - at least the parts I was working on, so you can check it out. And if you really want to know about that top secret part then yes, it does concern our next big project. For now I can only tell that it will be a casual game and that it will be really awesome. Sorry, I really wish I could tell you more.

Localizing games – or basically translating them into different languages, if you’re not familiar with the term – is now a common thing on the task list of a game developer, and casual games are no exception. Unfortunately the more complex a game is, the more difficult and costly it is to make localized versions of it. What’s more, if you don’t plan ahead for future localization right from the start it is possible then later localizing a poorly coded game will not be plausible at all! I know something about it as our first casual game Magic Match is available exclusively in English and it is not without a reason…

Continue reading “Localizing Saqqarah”

Yesterday we have launched our latest game Saqqarah for the Mac platform (available for both Intel and PowerPC). The game is available in both English and Polish language versions. This is a very important moment for us since this is our first game ever that has a Mac version. Additionally it takes advantage of our own CUG Framework game engine. You can download it both on Codeminion and on the official Saqqarah websites. The unlock codes for Saqqarah work on both Mac and Windows so if you purchased the game earlier and also happen to have a Mac be sure to check it out!

As you see lately I’m not posting  as often as I used to. That is because I’m very busy both at work and in personal live. Anyway here is a small update on what’s currently going on with Codeminion and our games.

Continue reading “July Update”

Don’t worry, this won’t be another rant about Big Fish games. Rather than that I would like to tell you about a some nice match-3 games that should be very interesting for both players and developers.

Match-3 games have a tough job breaking into the top-tens these days. Fortunately there are still match-3 games that manage to do it even on hidden object oriented portals. Our own game Saqqarah is just making its way to the top-tens and Fishdom is also an excellent example of a modern match-3 game that has the potential to outsell even big hidden object  productions. But why is that? Let’s see what makes up a good modern match-3 game.

Continue reading “I predict fish and pyramids in future games”

Saqqarah is now on BigFish and I am very happy to report that on the second day after the launch we’ve made it to the top ten. Till the last minute we didn’t know how the market would respond to the game and now we feel a big relief,  although it’s of course too early to tell if the game will be a great success over time - but all initial signs sure look encouraging!

Anyway the game is now an exclusive title for BigFish and it is currently getting serious promotion on their website.  What more could a developer want? In fact I could think of something, especially  after some recent events…

Continue reading “The good BIG bad FISH exclusive GAMES…”

Tomorrow is our big day. Ancient Quest of Saqqarah will be launched on the first portal, namely BigFishGames. The game will be available exclusively on BigFish for two weeks in exchange for a small promotion campaign. After that time it will hopefully appear on all major portals. Of course please remember that the game was first soft-launched on Game Club Cafe and our users are enjoying the full version for almost two weeks now.  Anyway, the coming weeks and days will finally show what our game is ultimately worth. We are very nervous, so please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Lately we are doing a lot of stuff that is new to us. Most important is that we are now self publishing our games under the Game Club Cafe brand. This is different than with Magic Match, as this game was published on an exclusive basis by Oberon Media, who later purchased the entire IP (intellectual property) rights to the game.  There are days when we regret selling Magic Match to Oberon, but generally we think that it was a fairly good decision business wise.

Continue reading “Casual Games Exclusive vs. Self Publishing”